Archive for the 'Immigration' Tag Under 'Orange Punch' Category

Sorry about not posting in this space sooner. I had computer trouble (turned out to be my mistakes) and an edit to write amid the troubles, so the process was more time-c0nsuming than usual.

The first thought on the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabriela Giffords is mild surprise at how quickly so many in the media and on the left moved to tie it to the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, et.al. for their supposedly incendiary language. But I probably shouldn't have been surprised. For all too many Americans the "other side," Left or Right, is the source of all evil in American life, and this evil act had to be pinned on those evil right-wing extremists. People on both sides -- including some who comment here and many who e-mail me several times a day -- seem to hate the other side more than they fear terrorism or furriners or real dictators, and see "our" commentators as clever, principled and insightful, while "their" commentators are hatemongers who provoke violence. Sad.

While there is some circumstantial evidence that Jared Loughner may have visited and been influenced by a really extreme right-wing site or two, evidence that he had anything to do with the Tea Party or Sarah Palin is at this point virtually non-existent. He seems to have been plenty troubled without them, and his fixation with Rep. Giffords seems to have dated from 2007, before the Tea Party was formed and before Sarah Palin was known outside Alaska.

The temptation to blame larger social forces even more than the reprehensible creature who actually pulled the trigger seems inevitable in American political life. Not that a great deal of political discourse isn't uncivil, juvenile and negative in tone, but nobody in remotely mainstream political life has been calling for assassination.

Daniel Drezner, who teaches at Tufts, does books, and blogs for Foreign Policy's Website, argues that Japan may be engaging in slow-motion suicide. The country has both a severe labor shortage and strict immigration policies that make it virtually impossible for foreigners to establish anything other than temporary residency. So virtually no foreign workers allowed to cope with the labor shortage, and since the country is an island it isn't all that easy for folks to enter illegally. This compounds the economic problems that surfaced during the 1990s and still linger despite (or because of?) massive government stimulus spending. One consequence of course is that Japan is far less influential than a country with the second or third largest economy in the world should be. A consequence of that is that Japan is less capable than it might otherwise be of helping resolve the Korean crisis.

Does anyone remember back in the 1980s when so many cognoscenti were tut-tutting about how Japan was going to overtake us and subjugate us?

This article in Slate.com explores the question and is unable to come up with an answer. The TSA says that national security concerns prevent it from citing specific cases, but independent experts like Bruce Schneier say this is because it's never happened. The TSA does publicize weekly incidents like finding artfully concealed contraband, but it hardly ever claims that these weapons finds were connected to an actual terrorist plot. The TSA made a big publicity deal out of nabbing a guy at the Orlando airport (which is trying to opt out of TSA for private contractors now) in 2008 with pipe-bomb-making stuff in his checked luggage, but there was no plan to put the bomb (or whatever) together on the plane (the baggage was checked) and the guy was never connected to a terrorist group. The TSA's behavioral detection program, at a cost of $200 million, has not nabbed a single terrorist (though it's nailed some illegal aliens and drug dealers). The GAO report noted that at least 16 people later connected to terrorist plots went through airports 23 times without being detected or spotted by the crack TSA teams.

It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the very existence of a screening program -- which was in place and privately run before the Bushies federalized it after 9/11 -- deters some would-be terrorists from trying anything. It's more likely, however, that it discourages amateurs and wannabes more than really serious plotters.

Incidentally, the head of the Orlando airport, which is moving to use private contractors instead of TSA (independently of the body-scan controversy) said on one of the news programs I caught that he is also a law enforcement officer, and the kind of pat-downs the TSA is doing now would be forbidden to a law enforcement officer without reasonable suspicion or a warrant.

John Samples at Cato has an interesting post speculating on why the Obama administration chose to attack the Chamber of Commerce for its purported use of devil-money from sinister furriners to influence U.S. elections. There still hasn't been any real evidence shown for the allegation, and even the mainstream press has noted that the only plausible source of such funds is dues from foreign branches of U.S. companies, which make up a tiny part of the Chamber's budget and which the Chamber insists are segregated and not used for political purposes. (Of course, since money is fungible, such segregation may be less effective than advertised; money available for one or two of the Chamber's many functions and activities means other money is available for other activities. Even so, it's more than unlikely that foreign corporations dominate or even influence the Chamber's political contribution decisions.)

Samples makes an interesting point, in addition to the obvious one that this is part of Obama's tactic -- born of desperation? -- to "fire up the base" (though some don't think this will work. While Democrats are generally perceived as friendly or at least not hostile to (for example) foreigners in this country illegally, the anti-Chamber ads and comments have a real air of anti-foreign jingoism to them. (Note that Barbara Boxer's ads also cater to this sentiment and express he dubiously sincere desire to see "Made in America" again.) Samples suggests that it isn't foreigners per se that Democrats love, but people perceived as oppressed and in need of (naturally) government action to protect them. Illegal aliens are viewed as an oppressed class, but foreigners with enough money to send some to the U.S. are more likely to be part of the corporate oppressor class

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said that it is a fallacy that the federal government has not acted on illegal immigration, specifically securing the border, while speaking at a luncheon in Orange County this week. She said a lot has been done. She talked about border security which she said included the coasts and airports and she also mentioned the problem with illegal immigration by the Irish. Video is below.

I don't support Arizona's new immigration law; I think there are better ways to deal with the problems of immigration. For example, get rid of welfare.

But it's their state. And in opposition to the law, President Obama and the federal government basically have declared war on Arizona. Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeau is right when he states, "Our own government has become our enemy and is taking us to court at a time when we need help."

He has just discovered that "our own government" has been our enemy for a long, long time, under Republicans tyrants, especially Bush, even more than under Democratic tyrants, such as Obama.

There's a solution: Arizona should secede. It has every right to do so according to the Declaration of Independence and the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Information Age means instant data, news, opinions and entertainment at our fingertips. It also means our personal information is less safe than ever before, leading to identity theft and other breaches of privacy.

One serious case developed in the middle of July when the names of 1,300 supposedly “illegal” immigrants were released to law-enforcement officials and news organizations, along with such private details as Social Security numbers, medical records and addresses. According to the New York Times story, releasing the medical information is a federal felony, while releasing the other data is a misdemeanor. Some version of the list may have been sent to law enforcement as early as April.

The information was purported to be from a group called “Concerned Citizens of the United States,” a previously unknown group. The release of the list stirred up debate again about immigration, including many references to Arizona's controversial immigration law, which is being challenged by the Obama administration in federal court. Pro-immigrant groups denounced the list as a bigoted right-wing attack on immigrants.

But on July 20, Reuters reported from Salt Lake City, Utah, “The Utah Department of Workforce Services announced the termination of one temporary employee who maintained a database containing information found on the list, and said a second employee would be fired soon.” So the real issue here isn't so much the highly contentious one of immigration, but abuse of government databases.

“This is an extremely serious breach of privacy,” Beth Givens told us; she's director of the Privacy Right Clearinghouse, a privacy watchdog group based in San Diego. “There are a lot of unanswered questions. I give the agency high marks for dismissing the employees who copied and released the data. It's important that the results of the investigation be made public. Facts need to be disclosed so officials and lawmakers can make sure this never happens again.”

WASHINGTON – In this week's address, President Barack Obama announced that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments from the Recovery Act to two solar companies. Abengoa Solar has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona, which will create about 1,600 construction jobs with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA.

The Republican controlled legislature has approved of making Latinos second class citizens, claims President Obama is not a US Citizen (which I believe should qualify as treason), has said it is ok for husbands to rape their wives and that Martin Luther King Jr. is NOT a national hero. They are just one step away from putting Latinos into concentration camps, I better stop now, that just might give them the idea.